Genealogies Poem by Ernest Hilbert

I envy those who trace their families back
And back, to covered wagons, Bunker Hill,
The Mayflower, and Bayeux Tapestry.
Some can worm all the way down to the Dark
Ages, before which all bets are off. Still,
I know nil of mine and would like to see:
What's back there? What's burrowed in the wood lot,
What turnpikes of genealogy sped
My kin through ages and nations to me?
Two generations back my short file stops.
This slender family branch must have once led
To trunk if not root. What strange folk were we?
Gangsters and seamstresses, what bizarre links,
Smiths and sylphs, deacons and drunks, kings and finks?